The air smelled of sawdust and molten metal as Taimur stood before the gathered men. Fifteen hundred souls—blacksmiths with soot-stained hands, carpenters who could read wood grain like poetry, stonemasons whose fingers remembered every chip in their chisels. They shifted nervously in the training yard, eyes darting between the strange machines looming around them and the leather-bound manual in Taimur's hands.
The Supreme Infantry Manual: Siege Engineering Volume weighed heavy against his palm. Its pages contained eight centuries of knowledge—Roman ballista designs refined by Chinese counterweight systems, Persian fire-mixing merged with Mongol mobility tactics. All waiting to be unleashed.
"You," Taimur pointed to a hulking Nubian smith, "what breaks faster—limestone or sandstone?"
The man blinked. "Lime—"
"Wrong." Taimur flipped open the manual. "Sandstone shatters under torsion. Limestone crumbles from vibration." He tossed the smith a schematic. "You'll lead the battering ram teams."
They began with fundamentals.
Not with hammers and nails, but ink and vellum. Each engineer received copied pages from the manual—precise diagrams of trebuchets that could hurl 300-pound stones, scaling ladders that locked together like puzzle pieces, siege towers armored with wet hides to resist fire.
A wiry shipwright from Alexandria traced a ballista blueprint with reverent fingers. "These gears… they'd triple the draw weight." His voice trembled. "But the stress—"
"Will be handled by the alloy formula on page forty-three," Taimur said, already walking past. "Your team builds five by next moon."
At night, the engineers pored over the manuals by oil lamp, calloused fingers smoothing creases from pages that held secrets their grandfathers' grandfathers never dreamed of.
The training yard became a forge of sparks and sweat.
Carpenters shaped Lebanese cedar into torsion frames, following the manual's precise angles. Blacksmiths smelted bronze triggers using alloy ratios that made Damascus steel seem crude. Former miners from Aswan mixed quicklime and sulfur into breach charges, their faces wrapped in wet cloth against the fumes.
Taimur walked the lines as they worked.
"Your trebuchet arm is three degrees too steep," he told one team, tapping the manual's calculations. "It'll throw short."
A Persian stonemason argued about mortar mixtures until Taimur showed him page 112—a recipe for "dragon's breath" paste that cracked stone after one drying cycle. The man wept when he saw it work.
The first test shook the earth.
A counterweight trebuchet—smaller than the manual described, but deadly precise—launched a burning stone across the Nile. It struck a derelict Fatimid watchtower, exploding the upper third into flaming debris.
Salahuddin, watching from horseback, gripped his reins too tightly.
Next came the ballistae. Steel-tipped bolts punched through three palm trunks stacked together. The new scorpion repeating crossbow mounted on siege towers shredded straw dummies at 200 paces.
But the masterpiece was the "Wall Viper"—a tunneling drill powered by oxen and gears that could undermine foundations in half the time of manual digging. When it collapsed its first test wall, the engineers cheered like fathers witnessing a birth.
Six Months Later: The Final Exam
They built a fortress—so they could break it.
For two weeks, the engineers constructed a mock Crusader castle—twin limestone walls, an iron-reinforced gate, even a water-filled moat. Then they surrounded it.
At dawn, firepots arced over the walls, Greek fire mixtures adjusted to burn even on water. By midday, the Wall Vipers had collapsed two sections of foundation. As defenders rushed to plug the breaches, siege towers rolled forward, their armored hides shrugging off arrows.
When the iron gate finally fell, it wasn't to a ram—but to a smith's team who'd heated it white-hot, then doused it with Nile water until the metal crystallized and shattered.
That night, Salahuddin walked the ruins with Taimur. He picked up a twisted hinge, still warm.
"These men…"
"Are now the deadliest craftsmen alive," Taimur finished. He patted the manual. "And this is just the beginning."
Siege Engineers Corps: 2,000/2,000 (500 veterans + 1,500 new. Masters of siege warfare.)
Current Equipment: Trebuchets, Ballistae, Zhuge Repeaters, Scorpion Crossbows, Fire Lances, Water Guns, Greek Fire Pots, Wall Viper.
[System Notification: Military Expansion Complete]
[+1,000 Merit Points]
[Total MP: 25,800 / 100,000]
Candlelight flickered in Salahuddin's private study as Taimur unrolled the heavy vellum scroll across the carved cedar table. The diagrams etched into the parchment were unlike anything the Sultan had ever seen—great iron tubes thicker than a man's thigh, complex carriages with wheels and recoil mechanisms, spheres of metal both solid and hollow.
The annotations in the margins spoke of ranges measured in hundreds of paces, of walls shattered in a single shot, of entire ships sunk by fire and thunder.
Salahuddin's fingers hovered over the illustration of a cannon belching flame, his face cycling through disbelief, horror, and finally, a slow, dawning hunger. "This… this is not Greek fire."
"No," Taimur said quietly, tapping the schematic. "This is something far worse. And far better."
The Sultan's eyes scanned the pages—precise measurements, alloy compositions, trajectory calculations, powder ratios. His breath came faster as he comprehended the destructive potential laid bare before him. "You can build this?"
"Not easily." Taimur flipped to a section on foundry processes. "The metallurgy alone will take months to perfect. The powder mixtures must be exact. And even then…" He pointed to a diagram of a ruptured barrel. "The risks are enormous."
Salahuddin paced to the window, gazing over the sleeping city of Cairo. In the distance, the lights of Alexandria's harbor glittered like stars—the same harbor that had once nearly fallen to Crusader siege.
"How many? How soon?"
"With unlimited funds? A dozen serviceable guns in a year. Maybe twenty." Taimur joined him at the window. "Enough to make Alexandria and Damietta impregnable. Enough to ensure no Crusader fleet ever threatens our shores again."
The Sultan's fingers tightened on the windowsill. "Do it."
They chose a barren stretch of land along the Nile Delta—far from prying eyes, surrounded by natural barriers. The walls rose first: high, thick, and patrolled by Sand Foxes with orders to kill any unauthorized observers. Inside those walls, strange new structures began to rise—unlike anything Egypt had seen.
A foundry with furnaces hot enough to melt iron, their chimneys belching smoke day and night. A powder mill, where water-driven stampers ground and mixed precious ingredients. Testing ranges, marked with distant targets, the farthest nearly half a mile away.
Taimur assembled his team personally.
Damascene smiths, who folded steel like parchment.
Byzantine engineers, veterans of Constantinople's siege engines.
Chinese alchemists, versed in fire and explosion.
Nubian miners, masters of Aswan's deep ore veins.
On the first day, he gathered them all in the central yard. Behind him stood a massive iron tube resting on a wooden carriage—their first prototype. Crude, but functional.
"This," he said, slapping the cold metal, "will change war forever. And you will be its makers."
The first few months were a litany of disasters.
Week Three: A test barrel burst mid-firing, sending shrapnel through a workshop wall. Two men died instantly.
Month Two: An unstable powder charge detonated prematurely, burning three alchemists before they could dive into the Nile.
Month Four: Their most promising cannon cracked after just eight shots, a lightning-shaped fissure splitting its length.
Each night, Taimur pored over the manual, cross-referencing their failures. Each morning, he pushed them harder.
"Thicker at the breech," he told the smiths. "That's where the pressure peaks."
"The powder must be granulated," he instructed the alchemists. "Not fine. Like coarse sand—see here?"
Slowly, painfully, they learned.
The first successful shot came at dawn of the fifth month. The crew—now clad in padded leather and iron visors—loaded the Nile Dragon, their most refined prototype.
"Ready!" the master gunner called.
The fuse was touched.
The world exploded.
The iron ball screamed across the range, striking the 300-pace target dead center. Dirt and stone erupted in a geyser. When the smoke cleared, the mound was gone—reduced to a smoking crater.
Silence. Then, from the back of the crowd, a single Nubian miner began to laugh. The sound spread until even the normally stone-faced Byzantines were howling with joy.
Taimur allowed himself a small smile. "Again."
By month eight, the process had been standardized.
Barrel Casting: Molten iron poured into clay molds, cooled in sand pits.
Boring & Finishing: Hand-cranked drills smoothed the barrels to precise tolerances.
Proof Testing: Each cannon fired ten double-charge rounds before being cleared for use.
The powder mill produced three grades:
Ignition Powder – fine as flour
Main Charge – granulated like salt
Lifting Powder – for explosive shells
The projectile workshop manufactured:
Solid Iron Balls (30 lbs standard)
Dragon Eggs – hollow spheres packed with powder and shrapnel
Incendiary Shells – Greek fire cores wrapped in iron lattice
On the project's first anniversary, six completed cannons were paraded through Alexandria and mounted on the sea walls. Crowds swarmed to witness the strange iron beasts being winched onto reinforced platforms.
Salahuddin himself came to observe the first live demonstration. The Nile Dragon stood aimed at the harbor entrance, its crew at rigid attention.
"Fire at will," Taimur ordered.
The master gunner moved through the ritual:
Powder charge rammed home
Iron ball loaded
Fuse lit
The blast knocked spectators off their feet. The ball screamed across the harbor, smashing into a derelict Fatimid galley half a mile out. Wood shattered inward. The ship broke like a twig.
Salahuddin's face had gone pale. "This changes everything."
Taimur nodded, eyes still on the gun crew as they began reloading. "Yes. Now the real work begins."
By dawn, all five cannons stood mounted upon their platforms like silent gods of war.
The Lion of Yusuf dominated the main harbor entrance, its twelve-foot barrel gleaming with a dull metallic sheen. The largest and heaviest of the five, it required a crew of eight—four to ram home the sixty-pound iron balls, two to adjust its massive elevation screws, and two more to tend the slow-burning match. Its test firing had obliterated an old Fatimid watchtower across the bay, the stone projectile traveling nearly a mile before impact. Handpicked from Salahuddin's personal guard, its crew treated the cannon like a sacred beast—oiling its fittings at dawn and dusk, whispering quiet invocations as they worked.
To the east, crouched between two merchant warehouses, lay the Shark's Tooth. Shorter, meaner, and built for close-range slaughter, it fired chain-shot—twin iron hemispheres linked by three feet of hardened chain. When loosed, the shot spun through the air like the blade of a wrathful angel, shredding masts, rigging, and sailors alike. Its crew were former pirates, men who had crippled more ships than they'd ever captured. Their captain, a scar-faced Rhodian with a salt-bleached beard, claimed his gun could "strip a Frankish galley naked before her crew finished their prayers."
At the heart of the sea wall, guarding the bustling customs docks, stood the Daughter of Nile. The smallest and fastest of the battery, it hurled nine-pound balls with lightning pace. Its sleek bronze barrel bore Quranic verses etched by a blind calligrapher from Cairo, said to bless each shot fired. The cannon's youthful crew—barely out of training—had already stunned observers by delivering three aimed shots in under two minutes. The visiting Byzantine engineers left the demonstration white-knuckled and silent.
Hidden behind a facade of rotting timbers and tattered fishing nets, Al-Mu'allim's Gift brooded in secret. This cannon did not deal in mere iron. It was built for terror—for Greek fire shells that burst in midair and spilled liquid flames across decks and rigging. Its crew were Sand Foxes and Sand Foxes alone; no one else was permitted near, not even the harbor master. When tested in secret against an abandoned smuggler's skiff, the fireball had lit up the night like a second sun. Screams from the tar-soaked dummies echoed across the waves, a chorus from hell itself.
And high above them all, on the citadel's outermost bastion, stood The Judge. This was Taimur's masterpiece—a rifled cannon with a spiraled bore, capable of sending a thirty-pound shot farther and straighter than any weapon in the known world. Damascus smiths, guided by secrets from the System manual, had crafted its interior grooves with impossible precision. During trials, it struck a moving target boat at eight hundred paces, the shot piercing the hull just above the waterline—exactly where the gun captain had aimed. The Sand Foxes assigned to its crew called each shot a verdict and kept a black ledger of hypothetical executions: one for every imagined Crusader captain.
[System Notification: Cannon Manufacturing Technology Perfected]
[+3000 Merit Points]
[Total MP: 28,800 / 100,000]
Merchant captains now paid their taxes without complaint. Fishermen gave the platforms a wide berth. Even the rats seemed to avoid the areas where powder dust lay thick on the ground.
And somewhere beyond the horizon, the Crusader fleets would soon learn these lessons too.
The hard way.